Most events in this month’s Under the Radar Festival are staged in the Public Theater, but The Unknown Dancer in the Neighborhood is performed at Japan Society’s handsome 250-seat auditorium on East 47th Street.
A complex work for a single dancer-actor, The Unknown Dancer in the Neighborhood is a 90-minute dance theater piece regarding contemporary urban existence.
Written and directed by Suguru Yamamoto, a Tokyo-based playwright, the work covers some pretty familiar ground for New Yorkers—its themes feature anonymity, loneliness, alienation, family, and even love in the big city—but does so with some humor and considerable urgency, as well as with a modern edge to its craftsmanship.
The piece and its sophisticated production is a layered collage of movement, projected images, video, pop music, sound effects, and spoken word.
Performed with Japanese and English surtitles, Yamamoto’s scenario is simple: Several strangers bump into each other at the zoo and then go separate ways in the neighborhood.
As the day wanes into a dangerous night and as the time stretches into weeks, months, and years, the lives of some of these people are detailed through their different points of view.
The fragments of their relatively everyday existence are presented against the dramas of the city, such as an accidental death on a packed subway platform or a hostage situation that goes badly. Much of the narrative is conveyed entirely by the projected surtitles that often denote people texting each other or commenting on Twitter.
If Yamamoto’s episodic saga proves generally bleak, he concludes it on a warm, upbeat note at a little birthday celebration. The ceaseless movement of the work’s single performer as well as the constantly changing backdrop of texts animate the production. Takaki Sudo’s handsome video design, Yuki Mori’s often sculptural side lighting and Junko Miyazaki’s sound environment enhance the narrative.
An expressive, energetic performance by Wataru Kitao, who believably evokes the different physical and vocal qualities of multiple characters, literally brings the story to life. Using only a few props and minor changes in clothes, Kitao fleetingly depicts a teenager and her family, an exotic dancer, an elderly man, an unborn soul, a prostitute and her pimp, a terrorist, and even a gorilla, among numerous other individuals. At one point Kitao personifies a train proudly bearing a load of commuters at rush hour.
A lithe and sinuous dancer-choreographer who collaborated with Yamamoto on developing the characters’ movement, Kitao ceaselessly drives the production with the coiled intensity of his impressive performance. Although The Unknown Dancer in the Neighborhood studies the indifference of people to other strangers amid the hurly-burly of urban life today, the kinetic heat generated by Kitao’s sharp performance frequently relieves the inherent melancholy of Yamamoto’s story.
The Under the Radar Festival opened January 8, 2020, at the Public Theater (and other venues) and runs through January 19. Tickets and information: publictheater.org
The Unknown Dancer in the Neighborhood opened January 10, 2020, at Japan Society and runs through January 14. Tickets and information: publictheater.org
